Rain Man
by tielan
Summary: John's teammates get dragged into a rain dance.


**NOTES**: For a fic challenge, to the prompt "soaked to the skin and laughter"

**Rain Man  
**

It was essentially a rain dance - not a dance to _bring_ rain, but a dance to _celebrate_ the first rains of spring on this village and their fields.

In the simplest terms, the locals went out and sang their songs as they danced in the rain, uncaring that their clothing was getting soaked through, and laughing as they grooved and jived and gyrated like collegiates at a rave party.

Not that John knew anything about that.

The village's leader danced up to Teyla, a man of Nordic blondness and middle years that wore well. His eyes sparkled violet as he took her hands, bowed over them, and led her out into the dance with a charming grin that quite ignored John's frown and Ronon's glower.

"Teyla..."

She glanced back, smiling. "It is a harmless celebration, John. I promise."

Yeah, like he hadn't heard _that_ one before!

Actually, given the way Mr. Nordic Violet was dancing with Teyla - a swaying, spinning, laughing swing of arms and legs and hips - he wasn't looking harmless at all. Ronon was fingering his weapon like he'd like to shoot the guy. Which John wouldn't mind, maybe, but there were courtesies and all.

"She's just dancing." He wasn't sure if the reassurance was for him or Ronon. Her hair had plastered down over her head and cheekbones, her jacket was quite soaked, and her trousers clung to her thighs and calves quite attractively.

"I don't trust him."

"Yeah, well, I don't trust him either, but it's a free galaxy. She's allowed to dance." Even with violet-eyed blondes who bent to whisper in her ear and made her grin.

"What? Oh, no, I don't dance," Rodney's slightly panicked tones caught John's attention. I'm prone to colds - I've had pnuemonia twice, at least, it felt like pnumonia and I was in bed for days. It would get really messy, and I don't dance - two left feet--"

The statuesque woman who'd been offering her hands to him, arched a dark blonde brow "You are our guest here, Dr. McKay?"

"Um, well, yes?"

"So I am one of your hosts?"

"Uh, yes."

"And you are beholden to our hospitality?"

"Well, in a manner of speak--" Rodney trailed off as his team-mates watched, bemused.

The woman leaned in towards him. "Your host says shut up and dance!"

Rodney went with the woman with surprising meekness, only flinching slightly as he moved out from beneath the slate roof of the porch they'd been standing under. Perhaps it helped that she had argued several of his points earlier that day, showing a significant knowledge of the physics laws of this world and how they'd been used to the advantage of her people.

It also probably helped that she'd been properly attentive to Rodney and all his knowledge.

"Don't look now, but I think we're in their sights," he told Ronon as a gaggle of lithe young things - male and female, none of them older than twenty, surely - ran up and began trying to coax them out. Ronon's protests were lost when one of the boys called his name and danced a challenge to him, just beyond reach, out in the rain.

Ronon's eyes narrowed. His lips peeled back in a grin. He shrugged out of his leather jacket, hanging it on one of the hooks by the wall, and let himself be dragged out, lightly cuffing the young man on the shoulder with a grin as the rain cascaded down his dreadlocks and over his bare shoulders.

Most of the others followed Ronon, cheering with laughter, but one or two wet hands caught John and tried to drag him out into the rain.

"I don't dance," he protested.

"You move," said the oldest girl. "You are not crippled or injured to stay out of the dance."

"But I'm dry," John said, ingenuously. They laughed, a ripple of young giggles. "Seriously, it's okay. You go out..."

He trailed off as Teyla came back onto the porch and divested herself of her jacket, hanging it up on a hook beside Ronon's. "John?"

John didn't let his eyes linger on the damp curves of her legs or the wet gleam along her throat and shoulder. He especially didn't look when she unfastened her flak vest. "How's the rain?"

She laughed and shook her head as the young people drifted away. "Come out and experience it yourself."

"No offence, but I'm not so sure..." John paused as Teyla moved behind him and began tugging off his jacket. "Teyla--"

"You need not remove the vest if you are so suspicious. Just come out into the rain for a little while." When he hesitated again, she added, "It will not hurt."

Out in the mud and grass of the fields, the villagers were dancing, skipping, laughing, soaked to the skin, celebrating. Ronon was getting down in a stomp-fest; Rodney was letting go of his dignity and trying to partner the statuesque blonde; and Teyla stood before him, her head tilted in invitation.

He stripped off his jacket _and_ his vest. If she was doing that much, he could too!

Within five seconds of stepping out from beneath the overhang, he was sodden. Rivulets ran down his throat, and the wind-blow waves of rain lashed at his back, then his shoulders, then his sides, then his front. And Teyla's laugh glittered back at him as took his warm hand in her chilled one, and pulled him into the dance.

- **fin** -


End file.
